A couple of weeks ago I was surfing the internet looking for a nice option for a weekend away. Unfortunately the fact that trains, buses and ferries within the UK are so expensive, sometimes is just much more convenient to get on a cheap flight and visit some other destinations. Sad to say.
So we picked somewhere close enough to London so we didn’t have to take any day off. The reason for choosing Dublin was definitely not the weather so the description we had from friends of a city that looks like London… but wetter was kind of what we were expecting before visiting! Travelling to Dublin with Ryanair was the cheapest option, just 50 minutes on the plane, the airport is only 30 minutes by bus far from the city centre and it was really easy for us to find the buses at the airport just outside the arrivals.
Before travelling we organised our short break through Visit Dublin, where a very handy tool allowed me to save in myDublin what I wanted to do, storing my items all in one place. Another useful website was myGuideIreland, where they suggest a perfect guide for a tour around Dublin in a day.
Once at the airport, we bought the Dublin pass for 45€ each, for 2 days. It included not only a one way ticket with the bus (from the airport to the city, only) worth 7 euros each, but also the prepaid entrance to most of the monuments, discounts in restaurants and many more advantages. If you think that most of the museums and monuments in Dublin cost around 7 to 15€ per person, at the end of the day if you manage to see everything in that short time is practical and you may save some money, so we do recommend it.
Of course a day is probably not enough to see everything, but it gave us an idea of what the most important things are in terms of culture, literature, music and of course drinking! We arrived at the hotel around noon and we left immediately to take the most of our first half day in the city. On our way to the city centre we bumped into the James Connelly statue, and as perfect tourists we didn’t know anything about it, but we knew he was quite important for the Irish history… and he definitely is. We then started from the Trinity College (not included with the pass, but a must), probably the most important university in Ireland, and it was worth paying the ticket to see the old library alone, which is the most amazing library I’ve ever seen, despite not being incredibly huge.
We then headed to the Guinness Storehouse: 7 floors of Guinness everywhere in a museum that reproduces the shape of the famous tulip glass so as you reach the top imagine you are on the top of your cold Irish pint. At the factory we learnt everything about the drink and the museum itself where we were encouraged to taste and touch all the ingredients while proceeding to the top floor where we finally got our well deserved full pint of Guinness looking at the amazing landscape over the city. If you don’t manage to buy any gadget within the museum no worries, you’ll find hundred of other places in the city and at the airport itself where you can buy original Guinness items anyway.
We stopped at the Queen of Tarts, one of the best patisseries in Ireland, for some nice cakes before heading to the Duke Pub to start our tour. Before starting our night with a Literary Pub Crawl, we bumped into some young Dubliners who our Irish friend Niamh describes as “knackers” or chavs as they would be called in UK!! They usually walk the streets wearing pyjamas! Every city have some, we all know that very well.
As we arrived at the pub we found ourselves surrounded by a nice bunch of octogenarians waiting for the show to start, while enjoying their pints and other sort of alcoholic drinks, of course. The actors started with a scene from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket:it was great! And it was a very entertaining way to know more about the lives and habits of the most famous Irish authors. We also met some very nice people within our group and we really recommend this tour to anyone new to the city. It only takes 2 hours or so, so even if you’re staying just one night in Dublin it’s great, and they do it 7 days a week.
On Sunday the city gave us the time to recover, with most museums opening not earlier than 11am, so plenty of time for a full Irish Breakfast at the hotel before heading to the Writers Museum, James Joyce’s Center and the Jamesons Distillery. The Jamesons Museum it is not as exciting as the Guinnes one, which is more entertaining, but if you are a wiskey lover or just curious, as we were, it’s definitely worth a visit as part of the Irish culture.
In a bit of a rush we managed to enter the Beatty Library after visiting Dublin Castle, which doesn’t look like a Castle anymore from outsite but it’s beautiful to visit. Temple Bar was our last stop before going back to the airport, and were lucky enough to finally listen to some great Irish music to end up the trip.
If you are used to walk in London Dublin can be easily visited on foot, as everything important is quite closed to the centre and it makes it easier for short breaks tourist like us. Drinks and food are quite pricey, although you cannot miss the drinking experience visiting some of its 700 pubs. The general impression was that Dublin is not as multicultural as London, that there’s always at least an old man drinking his pint of Guinness outside each pub and that apparently flights from Spain are really cheap and frequent, as most of the tourists were Spanish, and I guess this is almost the only foreign language we could hear around the city.
Overall, as we were told before visiting, Dublin is not stunning itself and it is not so much different to some English cities. However Dubliners’ pride, their history and culture can be perceived and this is what makes Dublin such a special place to visit. I left with the desire of reading millions of books, to become a writer (which is not going to happen), to study at Trinity college and listen to as much Irish music as I can. We had a great time in Ireland and I can’t wait to go back and visit more.
